Whisper
by Sull89
Summary: One shot. When Keira finds herself alone will her mind stay alert, or will it take her down the spiteful path of insanity? Not based on anything from the games, just a random drabble.


"Jak, Jak it's you!" Keira screamed, seeing the man walk by her, "Jak!"

He never turned, never looked back. Keira watched, her eyes brimming with tears, as his body faded into the distance and dissipated like fog. "Jak?" His name came off her lips in a shuddering gasp, a haunted question that was full of pain, "What…?"

But all Keira's efforts were in vain, because the Jak she saw wasn't real. Lonely and desperate as she was, Keira's mind had started to play dirty tricks on her and she couldn't control it.

Keira didn't know what to do though, and now her soul started to rip apart. Jak didn't acknowledge her; he didn't notice the sound of her voice or the rapid urgency in her call.

He just ignored her and walked away.

As she started to run, Keira's tears spilled over and left a wet trail down her face to mark their path. Not paying attention to the location of her feet and blinded by her tears, Keira tripped and went sprawling when the path became uneven.

Lying there on the ground, Keira found she had no energy. She had no will; nothing left to live for and no urge to move. It would be so easy to just stay where she was and let herself fade away, no one would notice when she was gone.

Jak didn't care.

The rain came slowly at first, but even when it turned into a total downpour Keira didn't notice; she was already drowning. Maybe this rain could even wash her away and take her pain with it.

Already drowning… Keira felt helpless, but slowly she forced her leaden limbs to move, one at a time. It seemed the rain hadn't done its job; it had forsaken Keira just like everyone else and left her alive.

It took her a few moments to notice, but when she finally did Keira realized that she was indoors. Indoors and dry, but still drowning; it was ironic, in a strange and depressing way. Not knowing where or evenwhy she was, Keira began to panic.

Her cries brought another person into her room, and when Keira saw his face she was immediately silenced. "Jak," a smile crept across her face, "Jak, it's you." Slowly Keira sat up with her arms outstretched, "Jak… I've missed you."

Jak never approached her though, and his image began to waver in front of Keira's vision. Bulging and pinching, Jak's body was twisted into unimaginable and fantastic shapes before it exploded.

With one cataclysmic scream Keira collapsed back onto the bed and left the old man standing where she had seen Jak startled and very confused. "Something has happened to this poor child," he said as he soother her brow with a moist washcloth.

"I knew that when I found her out there in the rain…"

Keira's return to consciousness was hard, but she made it. Forcing her eyes open she took in her surroundings. A simple and unadorned room was all the greeted her as watery sunlight filtered across her body, shining through the one door in the place.

Although Keira knew she was but one single step away from the darkness that had taken her earlier, she was determined to get up and find someone, anyone. Staggering through the doorway, the first thought that came to Keira's mind was, "The sun's almost set…"

Resting her hand against the door frame, Keira squinted into the fading light and realized that she didn't have the strength for this. A she stood there watching a crowd of people in the distance, Keira thought she caught a glimpse of blond and blue.

"Jak," she whispered in wonder, "is it really you this time?"

It wasn't though, and Keira's luck wasn't going to change. The two colors she had seen disappeared from her sight in an instant, and left her cold, alone and broken once again.

Collapsing to the ground, Keira felt herself step over the line and spin back into the void, back into the anguish and torture that seemed to have so much control over her lately.

"I can't make it stop!" she screamed. Keira screamed until it felt like her lungs were going to burst and her throat was going to collapse. "Why?" she sobbed, her eyes flooding over and blinding her with saltwater, "Jak!"

Curled up in the doorway, Keira's body shook with tears and her chest heaved with each labored breath. "What is happening to me?" she asked the empty air, half hoping to get a response.

"Everything I think, everything I see, is all of it a lie?" As hard as she tried, Keira couldn't bring herself to believe in anything anymore; not in right and wrong, not in reality and fantasy, not even in life and death.

"Who says death is the end?" she wondered aloud. "Maybe life is what they call hell, and death is the release…" Yet the hidden implications in that thought still scared Keira, even if they would led her to salvation.

"There's too much I can't control," she murmured.

"But, death could be an escape from my torment, right?" Keira said as she trailed her fingernail along the inside of her wrist, leaving a white line in her skin to mark the path it followed.

_Or it could lead you to more_, a little voice whispered within her mind.

The old man who had first found Keira on the ground came back to his home to find her there again, tears pouring from her eyes, sobs racking her chest, and dust coating her body.

_What is wrong with this poor soul_? he silently wondered. _I wish I could help her, _he paused to shake his head before finishing his thought, _but I can't do anything without information._

Slowly he reached down with the intention of helping the girl up, but when he laid his hand on her shoulder she violently shook him off. "No Jak," her voice was quiet at first, but it grew in volume as she went on, "don't touch me!"

Taking a step back, the man was amazed by the vehemence in her voice. "I'm sick of waiting for you," Keira screamed at him, "so leave me alone!" Her voice continued to gain in volume, "I hate you now, go away!"

It hurt the old man to see this girl in so much pain, and he felt like he had to do something, anything to help ease her suffering. Trying to placate her, he started to say, "Ma'am, I just-"

But Keira wouldn't let him finish. She struck out at the man and hit him hard on his shin, "Jak, I said NO!"

With a heavy sigh, the man turned away, knowing there was nothing he could do right now. He had to leave her there and let her sorrow follow its course, until it either fled her body or she passed out from sheer exhaustion.

How long she sat slumped in that doorway shouting at her phantoms Keira didn't know, but when she finally came to her senses she realized that she couldn't move any of her limbs.

A small groan escaped from Keira's lips, "Damn it all." Biting her lower lip to stop herself from shouting out, Keira slowly started to force her body into cooperation with her.

The tears flew out of her eyes, hitting the ground and her body at a rapid pace. It hurt so much, the dead pain in Keira's limbs felt like a thousand tiny needles were pressing into her skin.

She gritted her teeth and worked through it though, making first her arms and then her legs, functional again. Shaking uncontrollably, she rose to her feet, using the door jamb as support.

Once she leaned her body against the frame, she opened her mouth and ran her tongue along her lower lip. To her disgust, Keira tasted the blood as she felt it coat her tongue.

"You bit through your lip," she heard a voice behind her state. "I saw you do it right after you stood up."

Startled, Keira whipped around, looking for the source of that voice. Her body wasn't ready for that sort of move yet though, and it gave out on her once more, landing her hard on the ground.

This was it for Keira. She couldn't stand being so weak, couldn't live with the fact that her entire life was haunted. Looking up at the man who had started to run over to her, she held up a hand.

"Jak, I told you, no."

With that, Keira reached down and grabbed a small dagger from her boot. In a violent and bloody move, she ripped it across her wrists, tearing the skin and rupturing blood vessels.

The blood gushed from both cuts to flow down her arms and seep into the fabric of her clothes. Although her strength was fast fleeing, Keira held the dagger up at the man to stop him from coming near her.

"Leave me alone," she whispered. "I know the truth now, and I know who you are. I don't love you anymore."

Those words must have taken the last of her strength, because now the dagger fell from Keira's fingers to clatter against the floor. Collapsing against the ground, Keira stretched out along side her thin blade.

"Ma'am, no!" the old man shouted. But when he knelt down beside her, intending to do whatever he could to save her life, he realized that maybe he shouldn't. There were times when it was better to let a person decide their own fate.

He knew this was one of those times.

Although it went against every compassionate urge he had, all the man did was sit there and gently hold her hand as she slipped away from the realm of life. As he watched her lay there, the blood gurgling in her throat, he saw her lips move.

The words were faint, almost incomprehensible, but he heard them. "Jak, I lied," she whispered, "I do love you."

Those were the last words anyone would ever hear cross Keira's lips. With one final gasp, her entire body went limp. She was dead and gone, on her way to finding out if death was the release, or in reality something much worse.

The old man choked back tears. It tore his heart apart, to have seen this poor girl fall apart like that. Softly, he closed her eyes with one finger and whispered, "May your soul find peace."

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Read and Review please! 

Sull89


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